Case Number 05841

RENEGADE

The Charge

One man will journey beyond the boundaries...to claim the ultimate prize.

Opening Statement

Renegade sucks. You want to know why? Read on.

Inspired by the Blueberry series of graphic novels created by
Jean-Michel Charlier and Jean "Moebius" Giraud, Renegade
(released overseas as Blueberry) is the tale of Marshal Mike Blueberry, a
Cajun man who spent his formative years in the company of Indians. Blueberry has
forged a peace and understanding between his Indian brethren and the citizens of
the Old West town he is sworn to protect, but this peace is threatened by the
arrival of a psychotic cowboy who believes a treasure beyond imagination is
hidden on the Indians' sacred lands.

This film is astonishingly bad. It gets off to a bad start and somehow
manages to get worse as it goes along. Presented here, as a warning to anyone
who might be interested in seeing it, is a chronicle of this film's insipid
story, but be warned, I'm about to ruin the movie. (Well, that's not true -- the
filmmakers ruined it, but I am going to detail the plot.)

Oh, yeah -- you might want to grab a sandwich and something to drink, as I
think this is going to take a bit of time.

Facts of the Case

Blueberry opens with the young Mike Blueberry (Hugh O'Conor,
Chocolat) being sent to live on the farm of his tyrannical uncle (Tcheky
Karyo, Kiss of the Dragon). The wagon carrying Blueberry travels past the
town brothel; Mike looks up and sees Madeliene (Vahina Giocante), a young
prostitute. She longingly gazes back at him. A few days later Mike sneaks into
town and climbs up to Madeliene's room (I'm not sure how he knows which room is
hers). Madeliene knows Mike is a virgin, and, in a scene that wouldn't be out of
place on late-night Cinemax, she delicately ushers him into manhood. Next thing
you know, they're talking about running off together. Wow, didn't see that one
coming. Oh, yeah -- Madeliene's room is beautifully decorated, and is bigger
than the town jail. McCabe & Mrs. Miller this ain't.

Mike and Madeliene, still basking in the afterglow, are confronted by Blount
(Michael Madsen, Species), one of Madeliene's regular customers. He
taunts Mike, and then puts his gun to Madeliene's head, saying he'll kill her if
Mike doesn't leave. Things get ugly, Madeliene ends up with a bullet in her
brain, and the brothel goes up in flames. Mike flees into the desert; exhausted,
he falls off his horse, is attacked by a wide variety of snakes, and is
eventually rescued by a pair of Indians. They take him back to their village,
and nurse him back to health by lighting candles and blowing smoke on him. Mike
spends several years with the Indians, learning their ways, doing mescaline, and
reenacting Pink Floyd's "Learning to Fly" music video. The young Mike
morphs into the older Mike (Vincent Cassel, Brotherhood of the Wolf),
falls off a cliff, and ends up back in town as a marshal. Huh? Wait -- did I
miss something?

Aiding Mike in enforcing the law is the wheelchair-bound Rolling Bear
(Ernest Borgnine, The Wild Bunch), who is wheeled around town by his
idiot son Billy. (Billy the Idiot is portrayed by Jan Kounen, the director of
Renegade, who is probably unaware of how ironic this bit casting actually
is.) Mike also deputizes McClure (Colm Meaney, Con Air), who's the kind
of guy who goes around throwing hapless dentists through windows. (You oughtta
see Meaney's beard; it makes him look like Santa Claus from those old
Rankin/Bass Christmas specials.) Mike has some sort of relationship going on
with Mariah (Juliette Lewis, Cape Fear), whose father owns the town
gambling hall/saloon. (Sullivan, Mariah's father, is played by Geoffrey Lewis,
Juliette's real-life dad. You might remember him from Flo, or those Clint
Eastwood orangutan movies.) All the townsfolk gather in the hall, where Mariah
regales them with song. (When Juliette started belting out "Danny
Boy," I felt like shoving a pencil through my eardrum.) Their revelry is
interrupted one night by the arrival of Prosis (Eddie Izzard, Shadow of the
Vampire), a local opportunist/geologist/cartographer. Prosis claims he and
his partner Woodhead (Djimon Hounsou, Gladiator) were attacked by
Indians, who scalped Woodhead. Prosis shows everyone a cut on his head, saying
he was able to escape before he lost his own scalp. Mike doesn't buy the
story.

Mike heads off to the Indian village to see Runi (Temuera Morrison,
Vertical Limit), who was his closest companion while growing up; Runi is
now the village shaman. Before he can reach the village, Mike is accosted by the
band of Indians who attacked Woodhead; they give Mike Woodhead's scalp.
Meanwhile, Woodhead makes it back to town, finds Prosis, and attempts to kill
him for betraying him and leaving him for dead. (The only cool bit in the whole
film occurs in this scene: Woodhead removes his hat, and we get a glimpse of his
scalp-free head.) Just as Woodhead is about to pull the trigger, Blount shows up
and kills him. Blount and Prosis are both jailed, and it is revealed that Prosis
has acquired a manuscript Blount has been looking for. This manuscript, which
Prosis has given to Sullivan, contains directions to the treasure Blount so
desperately wants. Mike comes back, recognizes Blount, leaves the jail, throws
away his marshal's star, and goes to get a gun. He goes back to the jail,
planning to kill Blount, but is attacked by Blount's men, who have freed their
boss. Blount and his men rough up Mike and McClure and set the jail on fire.
Billy the Idiot wheels Rolling Bear up to the jail and, despite his father's
protests, attempts to stop McClure; Billy is shot and killed. The fire reaches
the munitions load stored in the jail, and the building explodes.

Blount, having learned where the manuscript really is, goes to Sullivan's
home, shoots Sullivan, and takes the manuscript. Maria finds her dead father,
gets all weepy, and sets out to track down Blount. McClure, having somehow
managed to escape an exploding building totally unscathed, hauls the wounded
Mike to the Indian village. Runi gives Mike some mescaline, and Mike starts
tripping. The demon Mike has been carrying around all these years manifests
itself, and it looks like something H.P. Lovecraft could have dreamed up after
eating a plate of bad clams. (I think this demon entered Mike's body following
the death of Madeleine, and has something to do with...ah, screw it. There's no
point trying to rationalize it.) Runi comes back, chants, and computer-generated
phantom snakes and lizards fly around the screen.

Mike, Runi, and McClure set out the next morning, hoping to stop Blount
before he reaches the Indians' Sacred Mountain. They find Maria, who has been
assaulted by Blount and his men. Runi heals Maria by chanting and blowing into
his fist. Meanwhile, Prosis kills Blount's horse, injures Blount, and sets off
for the Sacred Mountain. Mike and his companions arrive at the mountain, and
Runi tells him he must find the way inside on his own. Mike jumps into a small
pond, follows the stream feeding it, and ends up inside the mountain. Prosis,
who has also made it inside, stumbles upon a bed of quicksand and is killed.
Blount is also inside the Sacred Mountain, and he has discovered his treasure:
an ancient Indian temple. (It's not much of a temple. It looks like something
you'd find in a Roger Corman Indiana Jones knockoff.) He downs some
super-mescaline and enters the spirit world. Mike enters the temple, sees
Blount, and attacks him. Runi shows up and says Mike must enter the spirit world
to battle Blount. Mike and Runi ingest some of the super-mescaline, and Runi
begins chanting and blowing into his fist. (I tried this, but nothing came of
it.) They travel into the spirit world, and their journey looks like the battle
against the Master Control Program in Tron. Mike's spirit finds Blount's
spirit, and they battle. (At least I think that's what happens. All I could see
was a bunch of computer-generated centipedes, snakes, and spiders scurrying
about.) Maria swims into the mountain and arrives at the temple, and just in
time, too. It looks like Mike's spirit is about to be lost, but Maria sings to
him and, in an interminable sequence ripped off from 2001, his spirit
back travels back to this world. (Yeah, you read that right, Juliette Lewis
sings -- again.) Mike, who now looks like Christopher Walken during the Russian
roulette scenes in The Deer Hunter, learns that he acquired the ability
to travel between the physical and spirit worlds. McClure arrives at the temple
(you'd think the Indians would have made it a little harder to get into the
place), and smokes some of Runi's "tobakky." Mike celebrates his
victory by skinny-dipping and getting it on with Maria.

There, I just saved you two hours of your life.

The Evidence

Okay, enough with the story. Let's get to what else is wrong with
Renegade. The acting is uniformly bad. Vincent Cassel does nothing more
than squint his way through the movie, and he never seems to be sure exactly how
a Cajun who has spent a number of years living with Indians in the American West
should sound, so he decides to mimic Nicolas Cage. (I can't believe Cassel would
spend time away from his wife, the lovely Monica Bellucci, to waste his energy
on something like this. You know what I'd do if I were married to Monica
Bellucci? Never leave the house.) Juliette Lewis's Calamity Jane act
doesn't work; she still comes across as a dopey teenager. Judging by his
performance, Michael Madsen must have been drunk for the whole shoot, which
probably wasn't such a bad idea. Eddie Izzard proves he needs to be wearing a
dress to be entertaining, and Temuera Morrison doesn't make much of a shaman.
Don Rickles made a more convincing Indian in an episode of F Troop
I saw when I was younger.

As for Jan Kounen, this guy hasn't got a clue. He's taken rich source
material, tossed aside the graphic novels' realism and depth, and instead
substituted a nonsensical plot, way too many idiotic drug trips, and camera work
stolen from Ken Russell and Sam Raimi. Good lord. This is a loose adaptation of
the comics -- very loose; in fact, the only thing looser than this adaptation is
Paris Hilton. Some of the characters and locations have been ported over from
the comics, but that's about it. And I guess Kounen's never seen Strange
Days; otherwise he'd know not to let Juliette Lewis sing or disrobe.

The transfer on this disc is one of the worst I've ever seen. It's grainier
than a wheat field and riddled with mosquito noise and artifacts; colors are
washed-out, blacks are crushed to grays, and there's no shadow detail, which is
a real problem considering how many scenes take place in dark locations. The
audio is a little better, with a few good bits of surround activity, but the
dialogue is often unintelligible (which isn't mush of a loss), and the bass is
bloated and murky. Sony really screwed up on this one. The only extras are
trailers for other films you'll want to avoid. You also get some up-front ads.
Yippee.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

Vahina Giocante looks nice with her clothes off. That is all.

Closing Statement

Blueberry is awful. Just plain awful. If you see this sitting on a
store shelf somewhere, point, laugh, and be glad you're not me. Try to round up
some of the graphic novels. They don't disappoint.

The Verdict

Guilty all around! Court is adjourned. Oh, wait one more thing before we go.
Would someone please buy Juliette Lewis a can of Nair?